Christmas Cards

"Edward and Catriona Grebby-Coxe will not be sending Christmas cards this year. Instead they will be making a donation to The British Independent Game Promotion and Organisation Thingy (BIGPOT) fund for injured shooters. They therefore wish to take this opportunity to extend seasons greetings to all their friends and associates."

Good point. You can't send greetings to friends and give to charity. Definitely either/or. And everyone who's sent them a card will now feel guilty and uncharitable. Plus there's none of that tiresome writing business. Just a quick cheque, and then it's down to packing for Christmas in Martinique.

Yes, it's that time of year again. New computer, new operating system. I struggled for a couple of hours to get my creaking Lotus 123 address database operating on Vista, at one point losing it altogether. And formatting it for my Poundland labels wasn't great, either. Nettie does the bulk of the writing, bless her, just leaving me to do my relations and a few former girlfriends. Which is fair enough.

This is the only time of year we have contact with a lot of people. So we do write some stuff inside. Lots of people can't be arsed. All you get is:


There's one couple (it's okay, I can say this; they only use the Internet for on-line betting and searches for menage and pool maintenance firms) who send an annual card in which even their names are printed. For all we know the cards are sent out by an office services firm in Sydenham. (And yes, I know it should be 'manege', which means 'riding school' in French. 'Menage' means a married couple, but the equestrian world is no longer noted for its educational achievement, and the people in question definitely school their horses on a married couple).

Then there are the round-robin lot. I mean, it's creditable to get the full-on newsletter, but it's not personal to you and includes a lot of guff about their intolerable grandchildren's SATs results which you don't want or need to know. And then you are left with the task of having to write back with your own in-depth news report.

So Brother Tobias would like to announce that he will not be sending merry festive seasonal yuletide greetings to his reader this year, but will instead be donating his kidneys to the St Wenceslas Incontinent Santas' Home (SWISH), and would like to take this opportunity etc.